New Jersey Devils: 5 Things That Must Happen To Become Stanley Cup Contenders
Are the New Jersey Devils playoff contenders? Possibly, but what needs to happen for them to take it a step further beyond that?
Every year, it seems there is a surprise team that really pushes the “true” contenders to the limit. Last season, that was the Montreal Canadiens. One year ago today, the Canadiens were about 50/1 to win the Stanley Cup. They weren’t great at anything, their top players weren’t the superstars that other teams had, and their biggest names were a goalie who couldn’t stay consistent and a top defenseman who couldn’t stay healthy.
Yet, they went all the way to the Stanley Cup Final. It was a magical run that came just short. Two seasons ago, it was the New York Islanders who went on a run to the Conference Finals. St. Louis turned their Cinderella run into a Stanley Cup Championship in 2019. These runs happen constantly, and sometimes it is the transition a team sees from bottom feeder to long-term contender. They just need that one season to build confidence.
Can the New Jersey Devils contend for the Stanley Cup? Only if these five very specific things go right.
The New Jersey Devils can be that team, but only if everything, and we mean everything, goes right. We made the same predictions last season mostly in jest. It asked for P.K. Subban to turn into a Norris-level defenseman again and Corey Crawford to come in and play lights out. Those are both laughable now, but the whole premise was sort of a Kevin Garnett yelling “anything is possible” without the backing of a championship behind it.
This Devils team has a *chance* to get to heights. Is the chance higher than 25%? Probably not, but as the Dumb and Dumber GIF says, you’re saying there’s a chance. The Devils need a lot to fall into place, and it starts with these five things.
1. Mackenzie Blackwood plays like a Vezina winner
Just pointing out this doesn’t say “Vezina contender”, Mackenzie Blackwood has to play Vezina-winning goaltending for the Devils to truly hit their ceiling. He’s obviously in the headlines for the wrong thing, but when looking at the big picture, his ceiling gives the Devils a much better chance than Jonathan Bernier’s ceiling.
We’ve seen Blackwood go on dominant runs in the past. Over his first five games last season, he went 4-0-1 with a save percentage north of 94%. He was giving the Devils a chance to win on a nightly basis whether his defense came to play or not.
This season, he has a much better defense in front of him. This defense is also very offensively equipped to keep the puck away from him entirely. Sometimes that can lead to a goalie sitting around and then immediately facing a high-danger chance. Blackwood has stopped those in the past. He needs to do it even more in the future.
Blackwood allowed 44 high-danger goals against during 5v5 play last season according to Natural Stat Trick. The only goalies to allow more were Kevin Lankinen, Connor Hellebuyck (on a might higher minutes percentage), and John Gibson. He had a worse high-danger save percentage than all three of them. That needs to change in a huge way, or the Devils aren’t going to even make the playoffs, let alone go far.
2. Incredible Injury Luck
So far, the Devils have seen Jack Hughes, Ty Smith, Mackenzie Blackwood, Damon Severson, Jonathan Bernier, Miles Wood, and Tyce Thompson miss time with different injuries and ailments. That’s a pretty significant list of players to see get hurt during the preseason. Smith, Severson, and Wood are up in the air for opening night. Luckily for the Devils, Hughes’s injury was extremely minor and he was kept out of the rest of the preseason out of an abundance of caution.
The injury luck needs to change, and quick. The Devils have some depth on this team, but the plan likely isn’t to call up Alex Holtz the second someone gets injured. It’s probably to put Marian Studenic or Mason Geertsen into the lineup as soon as someone goes down. Then, there’s the defense. Say Dougie Hamilton misses ten games. It’s okay to give Severson if healthy ten games as a top-line right-handed defenseman. The issue is who replaces him in the middle of the lineup. They could just throw P.K. Subban back there, but then they have to have someone play out of position to play on the bottom line.
The Devils need to not only stay healthy, they need to stay remarkably healthy. They can’t afford any big injuries. The lineup is pretty fragile when it comes to chemistry and drop-off in talent.
3. Special Teams Ranks In Top 15
The Devils special teams were dreadful last season. The penalty kill was literally one of the worst units of all time. They allowed goals on just under 30 percent of their power plays against. Just normal logic says that is going to progress to the mean. Even if they were the worst team in the league on the penalty kill from 2019-20, they would be at 74.3%. That likely takes 7-10 goals off the board.
The power play wasn’t much better. At 14.2%, the power play was better than exactly three teams. When looking at the advanced stats, it looks even worse. The Devils got 13 high-danger chances per 60 on the power play last season. That’s third-worst in the league. The median teams get 19 high-danger chances per 60.
The Devils need to be much, much better on both units. Honestly, getting to league average looks like a miracle right now. However, a healthy Nico Hischier should do wonders for the penalty kill. Ryan Graves’s biggest impact on the team will be there, as well. He led the Avalanche to a top-ten unit with the most PK minutes on the team. Dougie Hamilton comes in to really help the power play. His puck cycling will give the Devils a lot more high-danger chances. If Jack Hughes breaks out this season, that will also help the power play. Speaking of which…
4. Jack Hughes AND Nico Hischier must have breakout monster seasons
The New Jersey Devils are putting all their eggs in the basket of Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes. While the youth on the team is less reliant on their perfection with the emergence of Yegor Sharangovich, Dawson Mercer, and Michael McLeod, they are still going to be the straw that stirs the drink for this franchise.
The Devils got two first-overall picks in 2017 and 2019. They were lucky in that the two centers they got in those drafts are very different in their style, so they can easily turn into a 1A-1B combination. Hischier plays more of a two-way game that wants to give equal contributions on both ends of the ice. He has great offensive skill, but his defense is what made him worthy of the number-one pick.
Hughes, on the other hand, is an offensive savant. He has great hockey IQ that allows him to jump on pucks in the offensive and defensive zone. He’s always trying to get the puck towards the net, and it shows in him leading the league in takeaways last season. Hughes is also already one of the best when it comes to zone entries.
They both need to take it three or four steps further. Nico Hischier needs to become a 60 point scorer while playing elite defense, and Hughes needs to get as close to a point per game as possible. That is key in making this team a championship contender.
5. Make A Trade For A Superstar
This is the one that might stand out, but it’s not as hard as it might seem. The Devils were in on Vladimir Tarasenko all offseason. He never got moved. The Devils are likely still calling the Blues just to see what his update is. Word was that teams, including the Devils, were scared off by his shoulder injury. If Tarasenko shows he can still play his style at his age despite the injuries, it could push a trade further along.
Tarasenko is not the only superstar that will be on the block. Filip Forsberg is another player that comes with a price. He is in the final year of his deal, and he will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year. That’s a risk for a Devils team that isn’t exactly a traditional contender, but the price might drop far enough for Tom Fitzgerald’s liking.
Tomas Hertl, Johnny Gaudreau, and Phil Kessel could all be on the move. The Devils have the cap space to take up just about anyone. They currently have around $9 million in cap space, but that will get closer to $12 million once the Devils finalize their roster based on which players are healthy and which ones get sent down to the AHL. Plus, if these trades happen midseason, they only have to pay that percentage of the cap space.
Next. 5 Bold Statistical Predictions. dark
The Devils have the space, the assets, and the need to make a superstar trade. This is the right time to do it midseason.